1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of language education, and more specifically to a computer program for training a human""s auditory processing system to discriminate between and accurately identify frequency sweeps that are common in spoken language.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to ten percent of children have language-learning impairments (LLI) resulting from the inability to accurately process short duration acoustic events at the rates that occur in normal speech. Their trouble distinguishing among elements of speech is neurologically based and has far reaching consequences, including: academic failure, emotional and disciplinary problems, and possibly diminished lifelong achievement and self-image. No bracket of intelligence, race, gender or economic level is immune from this problem.
More specifically, children with LLI have difficulty detecting and identifying sounds that occur simultaneously or in close proximity to each otherxe2x80x94a phenomenon known as xe2x80x9cmasking.xe2x80x9d Because of masking, children with LLI require sounds that are as much as 45 decibels more intense than a preceding or subsequent masking noise to distinguish and understand them. In addition, children with LLI are consistently poorer at detecting a brief tone presented with a masking noise, particularly when the brief tone is turned on immediately prior to the masking noise. This phenomenon is called xe2x80x9cbackward masking.xe2x80x9d Similarly, when the brief tone is turned on immediately after the masking noise a similar decrease in detectability can occur. This phenomenon is called xe2x80x9cforward maskingxe2x80x9d. For a tone to be detected by a child with LLI in the presence of a masking noise, the tone must be separated in time or frequency from the masking noise.
The inability to accurately distinguish and process short duration sounds often causes children to fall behind in school. Since the children can""t accurately interpret many language sounds, they can""t remember which symbols represent which sounds. This deficiency causes difficulties in learning to read (translating from symbols to sounds), and in spelling. In fact, it is common for a child with LLI to fall two to three years behind his/her peers in speech, language and reading development.
One way children develop such auditory processing problems is from middle ear infections when they are young and beginning to develop the oral representations of language in the central auditory nervous system. When a child has an ear infection, fluid can build up and block or muffle the sound wave entering the ear causing intermittent hearing loss. Even if the infection doesn""t permanently damage the ear, the child""s brain doesn""t learn to process some sounds because it hasn""t heard them accurately before, on a consistent basis. This typically occurs during a critical period of brain development when the brain is building the nerve connections necessary to accurately process acoustic events associated with normal speech.
Researchers believe that the auditory processing problem is essentially one of timing. Vowel sounds like /a/ and /e/ usually last at least 100 milliseconds and typically have constant frequency content. Consonants, on the other hand, typically have modulated frequency components, and last less than 40 milliseconds. Children with LLI cannot process these faster speech elements, especially the hard consonants like /t/, /p/, /d/ and /b/, if they occur either immediately before or after vowels, or if they are located near other consonants. Rather than hearing the individual sounds that make up a particular phoneme, children with LLI integrate closely associated sounds together over time. Since the duration of vowels are typically longer than consonants, the modulated frequency portions of consonants are often lost in the integration, an affect that may also hinder the resolution of the vowel, particularly short duration vowels.
This problem of abnormal temporal integration of acoustic events over time is not limited to children with LLI. Rather, the problem extends to stroke victims who have lost the neurological connections necessary to process speech, as well as to individuals raised in one country, having one set of language phonemes, and attempting to learn the language of another country, having a distinct set of language phonemes. For example, it is known that an individual raised in Japan is not often presented with phonemes similar to the English r""s and l""s, because those consonants are not common in the Japanese language. Similarly, there are many subtleties in the sounds made by a speaker of Japanese that are difficult to distinguish unless raised in Japan. The phonetic differences between languages are distinctions that must be learned, and are often very difficult. But, they are clearly problems that relate to the temporal processing of short duration acoustic events.
The above described temporal processing deficiency has little if anything to do with intelligence. In fact, some LLI specialists argue that brains choosing this different route by which to absorb and reassemble bits of speech may actually stimulate creative intelligence, but at the expense of speech and reading problems.
Recent studies have shown that if the acoustic events aassociated with phonemes that are difficult to distinguish, such as /ba/ and /da/, are slowed down, or that the consonant portion of the phonemes are emphasized, that students diagnosed as LLI can accurately distinguish between the phonemes. In addition, if the interval between two complex sounds is lengthened, LLI students are better able to process the sounds distinctly.
Heretofore, the solution to the processing problem has been to place LLI students in extended special education and/or speech therapy training programs that focus on speech recognition and speech production. Or, more commonly, repetitive reading programs, phonic games, or other phonic programs are undertaken. These programs often last for years, with a success rate that is often more closely associated with the skill of the speech and language professional than with the program of study.
What is needed is a method and apparatus that allows a subject with abnormal temporal processing to train, or retrain their brain to recognize and distinguish short duration acoustic events that are common in speech. Moreover, what is needed is a program that repetitively trains a subject to distinguish between frequency sweeps that are common in spoken language, by first stretching the frequency sweeps in time, and by separating them to the point that they are distinguishable, and then adaptively adjusting the stretching and separation of the frequency sweeps to the level of normal speech. The adaptive adjustments should be made so as to encourage the subject to continue with the repetitions, and the number of repetitions should be sufficient to develop the necessary neurological connections for normal temporal processing of speech. Moreover, the program should provide acoustic signals to the brain that are better for phonetic training than normal human speech.
To address the above-detailed deficiencies, the present invention provides a method for adaptively developing neural activity, to improve signal differentiation in spoken language, the method presenting sequences of frequency sweeps of varying duration, separated by an inter stimulus interval (ISI) of varying length, and with a varying number of frequency sweeps in each sequence. The method adaptively trains a subject to distinguish between auditorily presented frequency sweeps that are common in spoken language. The method includes: presenting a sequence of at least two frequency sweeps to a subject, the frequency sweeps separated by a predetermined inter stimulus interval (ISI); requiring the subject to signal identification of the frequency sweeps, in the order in which they are presented; and adaptively reducing or increasing the ISI separating the frequency sweeps as the subject incorrectly or correctly identifies their order of presentation, respectively.
In another aspect, the method trains a subject to process and distinguish upward and downward going frequency sweeps of frequency f, separated by a predetermined inter stimulus interval (ISI). The method includes: presenting a sequence containing a plurality of frequency sweeps to a subject for order identification, where the sequence has at least one upward going sweep and at least one downward going sweep; requiring the subject to signal identification of the order of the plurality of frequency sweeps presented in the sequence; and after the subject correctly identifies the order of the plurality of frequency sweeps in a plurality of presented sequences, increasing the number of frequency sweeps in the sequence.
In yet another aspect, the present invention describes a method for training a subject to discriminate between acoustic events that are common in spoken language by using sequences of upward and downward going frequency sweeps of frequency f, and duration d, and separated by an inter stimulus interval (ISI), the frequency sweeps presented to the subject for order identification. The method includes: presenting a sequence having a plurality of upward and downward going frequency sweeps to the subject for order identification; providing buttons associated with the upward and downward going frequency sweeps to allow the subject to signal order identification for the presented sequence; recording whether the subject""s signaled identification corresponds to the presented sequence (i.e., correct or incorrect); repeating a)-c); after a predetermined number of correct identifications, reducing the ISI; after a predetermined number of correct identifications, reducing d; and after a predetermined number of correct identifications, increasing the number of frequency sweeps presented in a sequence.